On Nov 14, 1:28 pm, Larry Tapper wrote:

hb Like I said, a dolt. GM Nunn *was* in fact the better
player, since LE was an old man and well past his prime
in chess when he penned that article.

hb Saying this denigrates LE is like observing that a
bird can fly faster than a fish can swim, and this is an
insult to the fish.

This issue was also raised by Louis Blair.

It's tricky to compare across eras, but it seems to me that Nunn in
his prime was maybe a tad better than Evans in his. So help bot's
allusion to Evans' being long in the tooth wasn't really necessary.


DON'T IGNORE THE FACTS


The whole key to this issue is not to determine
whether Larry Evans or John Nunn was the stronger
career player, or which one may have peaked the highest,
or who might have won a match between them, had their
careers aligned in time; instead, the issue of analytical
skill *must* not ignore the facts. One crucial fact is that
Larry Evans did his so-called analysis when he was far,
far beyond his peak years. Thus, it is vital when making
any assessment of whose skills were "denigrated", to
recognize that it was simply impossible for such a
comparison to have "denigrated" LE by merely pointing
out that JN was the stronger player at that particular
time.

But above this lies the still more crucial fact that LE
erred in his whole approach. As Taylor Kingston has
already pointed out, entire books have been written
(by GMs) based upon such errors as the ones LE
tried to portray as absurd anomalies, indicative of
cheating. Even in the pages of Chess Lies -- right
alongside the articles written by GM Evans -- there
have appeared countless articles in which strong
GMs, just like Paul Keres, have "inexplicably"
blundered in like manner. On top of this, there is
the "inconvenient truth" that Sammy Reshevsky
lost head-to-head to GM Botvinnik, and nobody is
going to suggest that he "threw" those games.


More to the point, Evans' favorite example was a rook and pawn
endgame, and Nunn has unquestioned expertise in that area in addition
to being a strong GM.

Well, it seems to me that Hans Ree quoted some
other experts on that ending, and their quoted
lines of play (perhaps incomplete or misrepresented)
were simply awful. The plan followed by GM
Botvinnik in the actual game was exceedingly
obvious, yet HR gave some berserk ones in its
stead, to demonstrate an "easy draw". It would
hardly surprise me if GM Nunn followed their
example, or if he just accepted the reality -- it's
more a matter of /objectivity/, than of strength.


Also, another critic of Evans' original analysis was Seirawan, who I'd
say was definitely a stronger player than Evans.

I don't recall anyone suggesting that Yasser
Seirawan actually rejected LE's chess analysis.
My impression has been that it was LE's absurd
"reasoning" and rabid anti-everything attitude that
YS has rejected. But it is important to recognize
that LE's claim was that he, and he alone, was
clever enough, and strong enough, to decipher
hidden clues contained in the moves themselves;
yet even after allegedly obtuse GMs with even
greater chess skills were shown these "clues"
by detective Evans, they rejected his method
as bogus.

My point is that not only was the method itself
horribly flawed, but even if we were to accept that
method, Larry Evans *still* falls flat on his face on
the basis of his authority argument.


-- help bot